Meet Rajesh Mudki, the only Indian in Cirque du Soleil’s new show Bazzar

Rajesh Mudki, a Mallakhamb champion from Mumbai, is the only Indian in Cirque du Soleil’s new show Bazzar, which will premiere in November

Rajesh Mudki folds and unfolds his body like a piece of origami. Defying gravity, Mudki, supported only by his feet, extends horizontally like a flag from an eight-foot wooden pole; or bends his body into an L-shape, around the pole; or stands tall, like a ship’s lookout, again supported only by his feet. He even hangs upside down, arms spread out like a soaring eagle.

What Mudki is demonstrating are different Mallakhamb positions. For those who don’t know, Mallakhamb is a mix of wrestling and yoga moves performed on a standing wooden pole, a hanging wooden pole, or on hanging ropes. It requires core strength, flexibility, power, agility, full body co-ordination and creativity. The discipline originated in Maharashtra. The first mention of it dates back to the 12th century, and it was revived in the 19th century by Balambhattadada Deodhar, the teacher of Peshwa Bajirao II. The pole is supposed to represent the opponent. “The exercises we do are completely different from gymnastics on other apparatus because they are wrestling moves,” Mudki says.

When Canadian entertainment company Cirque du Soleil, the world’s largest theatrical producer, premieres its latest creation, Bazzar, in Mumbai in November, Mudki will be performing a four-hand-a-half minute Mallakhamb routine. He is the only Indian in the show and he has waited 12 years for this opportunity.

“You work so hard to achieve your goal and then one day all of a sudden...,” he says. “Cirque du Soleil is such a big company. For me, I just wanted to work with them and get that experience.”

An aerial choreographer and Mallakhamb evangelist, Mudki first applied to Cirque du Soleil in 2006. He’d seen videos of their performances while researching aerial choreography routines on YouTube. The company responded, but only to say they had never heard of Mallakhamb. Still, they said they would keep him in mind. But after four years of waiting, Mudki figured they didn’t need him. He focused on building his choreography career, working on movies such as Dhoom 3, and musicals such as Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. He also co-founded Mallakhamb India, a website that promotes the discipline.

Then, last November, while he was performing in a show in London called La Soiree, the email he had given up on, unexpectedly arrived. Cirque du Soleil was looking for Mudki and his fellow Mallakhamb exponent, Rajesh Amrale. The Cirque du Soleil routine was supposed to include both Mudki and Amrale, but a week after they joined the company in Montreal in June, tests showed that Amrale had a torn ligament in his right knee that would take eight to 10 months to heal, so he was sent back to Mumbai.

Mirror met Mudki last Saturday evening at the Sane Guruji Vidhya Mandir in Santacruz, where he trains and teaches Mallakhamb. He is back in India after rehearsing in Montreal. Wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts, he looks younger than his 34 years and sports a well-groomed beard. His body has the chiselled look of a professional swimmer, or a wrestler, but he has never used weights. “Mallakhamb is like an [exercise] equipment. What you do on Mallakhamb is enough to build your muscles,” he says.

The pole is made of Sheesham wood and is also called Mallakhamb. Castor oil is used, either on the pole or the gymnast’s body, to reduce friction on the skin and as a disinfectant. That evening, a group of roughly 20 children were being put through their gymnastics paces in a rectangular hall. The sound of feet hitting mat reverberated through the air.

Mudki, who grew up in a chawl in Santacruz, was introduced to Mallakhamb as an eight-year-old by Yashwant Satam, a coach who is also one of the co-founders of Mallakhamb India. “Slowly, slowly I started feeling more interested in Mallakhamb. I started going for competitions, started winning medals,” Mudki says.” In 2006, having won a number of state and national competitions through the years, he was awarded the Shiv Chhatrapati Award, Maharashtra’s highest sporting honour.

With nothing left to achieve competitively, Mudki chose to focus on promoting Mallakhamb both within and outside the country, as few knew anything about the discipline that is, as he puts it, “an authentic Indian sport”. “That time, even the [National] Federation and [State] association were struggling to make it popular, to attract students and get more states to participate in Mallakhamb championships.” he says.

So a small group of Mallakhamb performers in Mumbai got together and came up with the idea of creating a website. That was the beginning of Mallakhamb India, and they soon began receiving emails from production houses and festivals asking for more information. “Back then, we didn’t know about the entertainment side and the artist’s life. We started giving them answers and they started inviting us [to perform].”

Their big break came in 2009 when Mudki and Amrale competed in a reality TV competiton. Mudki chose the rope version of Mallakhamb while Amrale chose the pole. “We went separately so if one of us got eliminated, the other could still go ahead,” Mudki says. He reached the semi-final while Amrale went all the way to the final. “It was a kind of fame for us. All of a sudden, so many people started asking us to perform. That’s where the journey started, actually.”

The reality TV show led to their first performance outside the country in Germany. It was called Franko Dragone’s India Circus Tour, and was directed by Franco Dragone, who was a Cirque du Soleil director from 1985 to 1998. Various members of Mallakhamb India have since travelled across the world, from Australia, where they performed for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, to Georgia, where they competed in Georgia’s Got Talent.

In 2010, an unexpected email led to his appearing on the Ellen Degeneres Show in the United States. “I didn’t know about Ellen Degeneres. I thought it was spam and thought let me not reply or my account will be hacked,” he says with a full-bodied laugh. A few days later, he was talking to his friend Sharanya and mentioned the email. “She was like, ‘What did you say? Are you kidding? You got an email from Ellen Degeneres!’” When he asked her who or what Ellen Degeneres was, Sharanya told him she hosted one of the biggest TV talk shows in America and that he should “reply to her right now.” So he did. And they wound up flying him to the United States for a one-day performance.

Cirque du Soleil represents the crowning moment of his artistic career. His contract with them lasts until December 31, 2019, but if the show is a hit, it could be extended. He claims he has already learned a lot about putting on a big production, from the use of technology to creating characters to safety. “They do everything possible so that you are comfortable performing,” he says.

Mudki says he was encouraged to create his own persona for Bazzar. He was given a few acting classes to help understand how to think about his character on stage. Mudki spent about a month mulling over the kind of image he wanted to project. “When I started practising, everyone, including the director, used to say that it is so spiritual, it is so pure. And I thought, what I can be that gives that spiritual energy to the show?”

He came up with the character of Mr No, a spiritual being who balances the energy in the show. “So for four-and-a-half minutes, what I am doing is showing my strength as a powerful individual on stage, which gives a spiritual power to all the other characters so they can go through their journeys.” He quickly adds, “You have to see the show to understand it fully.”

Mudki makes it clear that he could not have accomplished so much without the support of everyone in Mallakhamb India.And as someone devoted to spreading the gospel of Mallakhamb, he is aware of the responsibility of representing it on an international platform, especially since he will be sharing the stage with a dozen other disciplines.

Bazzar had a soft launch in Montreal, and Mudki says his performances were well received, with audience members coming up to him after the show to ask questions about Mallakhamb. “Honestly, they loved it. I am just waiting to see how India and Indians respond to my act,“ he says. “I am little nervous.”

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